Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay's biography
W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The History of the Albigensian Crusade (1998)
"The only reliable information we have about the author of the Historia comes from the Historia itself. In the opening paragraph of his work he describes himself as ... 'Brother Peter, a monk of Vaux-de-Cernay'. The Historia says nothing about his early upbringing, bit it seems certain that as the nephew and protege of his uncle, Abbot Guy of les Vaux-de-Cernay, he would have been educated in the abbey from an early age. The abbey had been founded early in the twelfth century by the Neauphle family, and it received donations of lands from the de Montforts and other local aristocratic families. Members of some of these families were to accompany Simon de Montfort on the Fourth Crusade in 1202-1203 ... and later on the Albigensian Crusade. The monks of the abbey enjoyed a network of links with the seigneurial society of the neighbouring area, and Peter would thus have grown up with a good knowledge of this society and its members. Indeed he refers ... to his uncle as being 'of noble birth', 'nobilis genere', and presumably he himself came from a privileged background.
We do not know when he was born. He was a monk in 1212 ..., and would thus have been at least eighteen years old by then. More precise estimates depend very much on how we regard his description of himself as 'puer elementarius' in the dedication of his work to Pope Innocent III ..., probably written in 1213. The phrase seems literally to mean simply a 'schoolboy'.... Although puer by itself often means 'a young man', in so describing himself Peter is clearly indulging in rhetorical exaggeration; the question is how far this is so.
G&L [Guebin and Ernest Lyon] ... seem to take the phrase at face value and suggest that Peter will have been born in 1194 or a little before ('ou peu avant'). However, if he was born as late as 1194 he would have been only eight or nine years old in 1202 when he accompanied his uncle and Simon de Montfort to Venice to join the Fourth Crusade, and when on his own testimony he was able not just to read but to comprehend a papal bull ... -- perhaps not impossible for an eight-year-old, but surely unlikely.
At the other extreme Yves Dossat ... argues that Peter must have been a monk by the time he went to Venice in 1202, which would make him about thirty in 1213. Dossat's assumption would involve stretching the meaning of puer to an extreme. Whilst there can be no certainty the answer may lie between these views, and we might therefore assume that Peter was born in 1190 or a little earlier, making him twelve years old or a little more in 1202 and thus in his early twenties in 1213." (p. xxiii-xxiv)
"In March 1212 Guy took his nephew Peter (who was by now a monk) with him to the Midi to join Simon de Montfort and the crusaders, and 'to support him in his journey to foreign lands'... Guy had been elected Bishop of Carcassonne, and was consecrated in the office in May 1212 .... From this point onwards Peter witnessed and took part in some of the events he describes, and apart from a three-week visit to Narbonne remained with the crusaders until the Council of Lavaur in January 1213 .... His account of events during this period is clearly influenced by his personal knowledge, and for example he describes how at the siege of Moissac in late summer 1212 he himself narrowly escaped being killed by a bolt from a crossbow.... After the Council of Lavaur Abbot Guy went to northern France to rally support for the Crusade, and Peter evidently went with him. Indeed, it is likely that he accompanied Guy on his preaching campaign in the north during 1213 ... and was with him in Paris in April ....
Peter was still with his uncle when the latter returned to the South in April 1214 ..., and remained with the crusaders until at least the end of June that year. We find him in the South again in 1216 ... and he aslo seems to have been present at some stages at the second siege of Toulouse in 1218 ....Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)
...
It seems almost beyond doubt that Peter must have died soon after the last events he recorded, which took place in December 1218. This is suggested particularly by the fact that he clearly left his work in an incomplete state" (pp. xxiv-xxv)
"The most important Catholic chronicler of the Albigensian Crusade is Peter, a Cistercian monk, from the abbey of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, situated about thirty-five kilometres to the south-west of Paris. The abbey had strong connections with the family of Simon de Montfort, who was chosen as leader of the crusade in late August 1209, and Peter accompanied the crusade for much of the time Montfort was in charge, so he was either an eye-witness or gained his information from participants." (p. 34)Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)
"Pierre des Vaux, a Cistercian monk at the abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay in northern France, began his work on the Albigensian crusade in 1213. The first section was finished by 1216 , when it was dedicated to Pope Innocent III, and a later section, covering the death of Simon de Montfort, was added at a later date and never completed....
Pierre des Vaux visited Languedoc twice during the period of the crusade, in 1212 and from 1214 to 1218, only departing after the death of Simon de Montfort." (p. 18)Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)
"Peter was a Cistercian monk in his twenties who accompanied his uncle Guy, himself Abbot of Vaux-de-Cernay, and later Bishop of Carcassonne, on crusade. Though Peter was not in the south the entire time of which he wrote, he witnessed many important events during the crusade, and he knew all the important principals on the crusader side, including Simon de Montfort." (p. 24)
"During the crusader army's stay at Albi [Spring of 1212] Peter Vaux-de-Cernay made his first eyewitness appearance in the Occitan War. He had accompanied his uncle Guy, the abbot, to Occitania, probably as secretary. In that capacity Peter was in the south for virtually the entire campaign season of 1212 before departing for France with his uncle in early 1213. Events of the campaign year of 1212 ... have particularly detailed accounts based on Peter Vaux-de-Cernay's personal observations." (p. 135)
Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay's style
W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The History of the Albigensian Crusade (1998)
"Peter writes fluently and he has an assured command of Latin. Despite differences in detail, his Latin is not far distant from the Latin of the classical period, but it seems that he many not have been directly influenced during his formative years by studying the established authors of that period. There are records of the contents of the library at the monastery of les Vaux-de-Cernay at about Peter's time which suggest that they consisted exclusively of texts by Church writers (including a large number of tracts against heresy), and no works by classical writers are listed ....
Following well-established convention Peter claims in his introduction that his aim is not 'to decorate the text with superfluous and meaningless rhetoric but to tell the plain truth in plain fashion'. The claim seems to have been forgotten when he is indulging himself in attacks on the heretics and their supporters (where his full command of his medium is especially demonstrated), but it is true that his writing is generally straightforward (especially as compared with the papal letters) and his meaning is rarely obscure. His narrative passages are direct and to the point, and he paints vivid pictures of the towns and the country round them, and frequently gives copious details of military activities. The various stylistic devices he uses (many of which cannot comfortably be accommodated in translation) are part of the traditional stock in trade of medieval writers. We may especially note his fondness for puns: his favourite, which occurs several times is 'Tolosa dolosa', 'treacherous Toulouse'."" (p. xxv-xxvi)Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay's bias
Zoe Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur (1959)
"The Count of Toulouse ... had been much discredited by rumours accusing him of complicity in the Legate's murder. But this crime might not suffice in itself to arouse wholehearted execration against him, since the French barons were themselves constantly at daggers drawn with the clergy. Accordingly the propagandists were obliged to blacken his portrait yet further. Pierre des Vaux de Cernay, a faithful interpreter of the extremist movement among the Crusaders, makes the Count a perfectly odious figure." (pp. 12-13)
"Pierre des Vaux de Cernay, one of the Crusade's apologists, sees this collective punishment of an heretical city as a perfectly just act: in any case, had not the inhabitants murdered their Viscount forty-two years earlier to the very day? He does not add that they had been punished for this by the massacre of the male population the following year. He rejoices in such a miraculous coincidence, which proves that God willed the town's chastisement -- a fact confirmed by the tragedy having taken place on the feast day of St Mary Magdalene, whose name the burghers of Beziers had allowed themselves to speak ill of. Moreover, it was in the Church of this same Mary Magdalene that seven thousand persons had been slaughtered(!). Singular though de Cernay's idea of God is, he cannot have been the only man who reasoned along these lines; but he appears to regard the misfortune that befell Beziers as a kind of cosmic catastrophe rather than the work of human hands. He would have described an earthquake in precisely similar terms." (pp. 119-120)
"The Cardinal-Legate accepted this submission [by the young Count Raymond of Toulouse] -- an act which, in the last resort, constituted an implicit denial of De Montfort's claims. Such an acceptance, indeed, seemed to infringe the victor of Muret's rights so flagrantly that his supporters (whose views Vaux de Cernay echoes) could only explain the attitude taken by Peter of Beneventum as pious eyewash, designed to lull the Count's suspicions. 'O legati fraus pia!' the historain exclaims, without any trace of irony, 'O pietas fraudulenta!' Vaux de Cernay was indeed a strange Catholic, whose opinions repeatedly hint at some crude lack of moral principle." (p. 172)
"Both authors [he and Guillaume de Tudela] were keen to present their accounts as founded on reliable information and personal experience: Pierre des Vaux stated in his introductory dedication to the Pope that 'everything is true which is written here, as I have set down nothing which I have not either witnessed with my own eyes or heard from persons of great authority'....Jacques Maudale in The Albigensian Crusade (1967)
The credentials of both Pierre des Vaux and Guillaume de Tudela mean that their accounts can be regarded as generally well-informed and together they provide a large part of the information available on the Albigensian crusade. At first glance, the two authors appear to be describing the crusade from different sides. Pierre des Vaux was associated with the crusade leadership. His uncle, Abbot Guy des Vaux-de-Cernay, was not only involved in the Cistercian preaching efforts against heresy both before and during the crusade, but was also a friend of Simon de Montfort, having accompanied him on the Fourth Crusade in 1202. Pierre accompanied his uncle to Languedoc, as he may have likewise done to Zara, and would therefore have been in close contact with both the secular leader of the crusade and the papal legates, especially Arnauld Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux. Pierre des Vaux's account of the crusade can in fact be regarded as the 'official history', presenting the version of events which the crusade leadership wished to disseminate." (pp. 18-19)
"His [Abbot Guy's] brother, Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay, wrote a chronicle called Historia Albigensis which is a panegyric of Simon de Montfort from beginning to end." (pp. 68-69)W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The History of the Albigensian Crusade (1998)
"Peter knew him [Simon de Montfort] well, and his admiration for him permeates his writing. Because of this, and because PEter's main sources of information about the history of these years came from the crusaders and their allies, the Historia is written very much from the point of view of the crusaders in general and Simon de Montfort in particular. ... Those who oppose the Crusade are portrayed in the worst possible light, usually branded as heretics or supporters of heresy, acting from base motives. Peter especially loathed Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse (who became the main target of the Crusade), and Count Raymond-Roger of Foix, and the Historia abounds with denunciations of them and with details of their alleged iniquities. They are the agents of Satan in what is portrayed as an almost Manichean struggle between good and evil -- which may now seem ironic, given the dualist beliefs of the Cathars whom Peter so detested.
These features of the Historia contribute both to its strengths and its shortcomings. Its strengths derive from Peter's personal involvement, and its shortcomings from his prejudices and the one-sidedness of his approach." (p. xix-xx)
"... doubts about his reliability have focused mainly on the fact that his account is highly partisan, sometimes (to modern eyes) almost ludicrously so. Certainly his approach to writing the Historia reflected his background and education, his close involvement with the leaders of the Crusade, and his inability to understand or even record the attitudes of the Crusade's opponents. His detestation of heresy and those he believed supported it was deeply ingrained. For him there was no grey area between good and evil, so that any opponent of the crusaders was ipso facto a heretic or a supporter of heretics. It was beyond him to think that the southern lords and King Peter of Aragon might have had a legitimate point of view. His prejudice is so great and so manifest that at times it is tempting to think of him as a mere propagandist, perhaps even a cynical propagandist. Roquebert, for example, appears to take this view ....
However, close acquaintance with the Historia suggests a different conclusion: that Peter was a rather naive young man, quite intelligent, but unsophisticated, a zealous believer in orthodox dogma (he himself would no doubt have said simply that he was steadfastly faithful), and glad to accept what his superiors told him without question. This is not especially surprising. He belonged to the ecclesiastical aristocracy of the north, and his values and prejudices were those of that society. His writing simply reflects this." (pp. xxvii-xxviii)Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)
"If, for Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, Raymond VI was the arch-villain, the exact counterpoint to Simon of Montfort, he was nevertheless only the most prominent member of a cast which the chronicler saw as equally wicked and perverse." (p. 50)
"... in Peter's world there could be no ambiguity; men were either on the side of the Lord or in the grip of the devil.
Although Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay's language is intemperate and his moral judgements immutable, his view that the great territorial lords of the region tolerated and even protected heretics is nevertheless confirmed by other chroniclers and by witnesses before the inquistiors." (p. 51)
"As far as Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay was concerned the entire population of the three main cities [Beziers, Carcassonne, and Toulouse] were irredeemably tainted by heresy; indeed, he seems to have associated urban life with sin, almost by definition." (p. 64)
"One of the most virulent [of Catholic writers] was the Cistercian, Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, whose close connection with the Albigensian Crusade hardened his already uncompromising stance on the heretics.
...
Not all were as consistently antagonistic as Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, though." (p. 94)
"Statistics cannot convey, however, that it was a war fought with particular brutality. ... As might be expected, Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay claims that the other side started it, but whatever the truth of this, it is clear from his narrative that both sides were involved." (p. 132)Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)
"Caesarius's work, like that of Pierre des Vaux, can be seen as a particularly legatine source, but there is a distinct difference between the appraoch of the two accounts. Pierre des Vaux, as has been discussed, was presenting the official legatine version of the crusade, designed to show the crusade and the Church in as good a light as possible. His approach to such unfortunate episodes as the sack of Beziers was both to justify and minimise, to ensure the exculpation of the Church.
...
Caesarius's account of the sack of Beziers can be used as a companion piece to that given by Pierre des Vaux, as these two sources represent the same viewpoint in two different guises. Pierre des Vaux's account was constructed for external consumption, to justify the Cistercian legatine version of the crusade." (p. 18)
"In Pierre des Vaux's chronicle, the lord of Languedoc performed a different function [from that in Guillaume de Tudela's Chanson]. Pierre's principal concern was to defend the behaviour of the crusaders and to provide an entirely positive picture of their enterprise. The descriptions of the evil characters of lords such as the Count of Toulouse and the Count of Foix were designed to defend the legates and crusaders against charges that they had victimised them unjustly, with the description of the Count of Toulouse, as the chief enemy of the crusade, being given particular prominence. The element of justification is also apparent in Pierre des Vaux's approach to other inhabitants of Languedoc, such as, for example, the citizens of Beziers.
Pierre was obviously aware that the sack of Beziers by the crusaders was likely to attract considerable criticism even among those who did not oppose the crusade and that he had therefore to defend the leaders of the crusade against the charges of brutality levelled against them, for example, by Guillaume de Tudela. It was clearly insufficient for Pierre to defend the behaviour of the crusaders at Beziers by stating that all the citizens had been heretics, as this was manifestly untrue. Pierre therefore began his passage on the capture and sack of Beziers by the crusade with a statement of the generally evil character of the citizens, quite apart from their heretical leanings: 'Beziers was a very noble city, but totally infected with the poison of the heretical perversion: the citizens of Beziers were not only heretics, but were also thieves, lawless men, adulterers, the worst robbers, full of all types of sin.'
As if concerned that this did not sufficiently establish that the citizens of Beziers richly deserved their fate, he then went on to provide a specific justification for the sack and its most glaring atrocity, the murder of those citizens who had sought refuge in the cathedral of St Mary Magdalene, by creating parallels with an earlier crime committed by the citizens in that same cathedral ....
That Pierre des Vaux's account of the citizens of Beziers had an excusatory function in the Historia Albigensis can be further demonstrated by a comparison with the way in which he deals with the citizens of Carcassonne, the next town to be taken by the crusade. There is no evidence to suggest that the citizens of Carcassonne genuinely had a better reputation than their counterparts in Beziers or that they were particularly disposed to support the crusade. However, in comparison to his long passage on Beziers, Pierre devoted only one line to the citizens of Carcassonne, describing them as 'very evil heretics, and very great sinners before God.' Pierre's lack of interest in establishing the evil moral character of the citizens of Carcassonne, in contrast to those of Beziers, seems most likely to relate to the different treatment which they received at the hands of the crusaders: Carcassonne surrendered after a short siege and the citizens were allowed to leave unharmed. In considering the citizens of Carcassonne, Pierre had no crimes committed against them to justify and therefore no motive for spending much time describing their no doubt numerous faults. Thus, in Pierre des Vaux's chronicle, the presentation of the inhabitants of Languedoc both explains and justifies their relations with the crusaders.
Pierre des Vaux clearly shared the attitude of the crusaders that opposition to the crusade could be equated with heresy: the presence of one determined the other. For Pierre, this justified the massacre of castle garrisons who had not been given the chance to abjure their supposed heresy, a tactic which, according to Guillaume de Tudela, was assumed as a military strategy. This presentation of opposition to the crusade cearly fulfilled the justificatory function of Pierre's recitations of the evils of the inhabitants of Languedoc, stressing the righteousness of the crusaders. Pierre's portrayal of the people of Languedoc attributed degrees of heresy to them according to the treatment which they received from the crusaders, on the principle that the crusaders must be shown to have been always right." (pp. 25-27)
Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)
"Scholars who have assessed Peter's contribution have come up with a mixed bag, depending on which side their sympathies lie. Because of his youth and ideals (zealously pious), status (a Cistercian monk) and relations (nephew of a Cistercian abbot who was on intimate terms with the commander of the crusade), the current consensus is that Peter was heavily biased towards the crusade but that his biases are openly stated. This really understates his value. Peter's chronicle is essential not only for the depth of basic details he provides, but quite simply for understanding through the eyes of the crusaders how the war was fought. As someone so intimately linked to the crusade his work contains details to which no other source comes close, and he recorded verbatim many letters exchanged between the pope and others on the crusade. Religious zealotry aside, Peter was a detailed observer who stated in his dedication to the pope that he wrote nothing down that he did not personally witness or hear from eyewitnesses. While we should not always take him at his word, Peter is the best source for the Occitan War up to 1216." (p. 24-25)Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)
""My intention in this history, my sole purpose in writing it," stressed Peter des Vaux-de-Cernay fifty years earlier [than roughly 1270], at the beginning of his book on the crusade, "is to ensure that all the nations will be aware of God's marvellous works." ... bursting with passion and rhetoric (despite a promise "to tell the plain truth in plain fashion"), nevertheless epitomized in [his history] the temporal paradox of all medieval heretical historiography. As heretical events were narrated, as heterodox stories were told, time itself was flattened by the timeless audacity of heresy. A kind of heretical essentialism, immune to historical change, was actually confirmed, over and over again, by the very act of writing a history of heresy." (pp. 17-18)
Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay's reliability
Zoe Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur (1959)
"... Pierre des Vaux de Cernay, a man of somewhat intemperate language but still, doubtless, a fairly accurate guide to the general opinion of his kind..." (p. 14)
"Though Pierre des Vaux de Cernay may be a most partial witness, he cannot surely have been wholly mistaken when he claimed that these credentes were addicted to 'usury, rapine, murder, perjury, and every kind of perversion'. He is here referring, clearly, to the Cathar seigneurs and knights; and we should not forget that identical accusations were brought against the nobility of countries untouched by any taint of heresy." (p. 68)
"Vaux de Cernay makes no reference to this document [the Legatine ultimatum to Count Raymond in 1211], but asserts that the Count, who 'like the Saracens believed in omens derived from the flight and calling of birds, and other such portents', was so alarmed by some unlucky prognostication or other that he hurriedly withdrew from the meeting -- an account that squares ill with Raymond's character as we know it. De Cernay, that panegyrist of the Crusade, is anxious to avoid making the Legates responsible for this hurried withdrawal -- though in fact it can only be explained in terms of provocation on their part." (p. 147)Jacques Maudale in The Albigensian Crusade (1967)
"There followed a dialogue between the Ancient and the novice. The Ancient began by asking -- if we may believe Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay1 -- "Do you renounce the Cross made with oil and chrism by the priest ...Jonathan Sumption in The Albigensian Crusade (1978)
...
1 But as Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay was a ferocious enemy of the Cathars, his evidence is as suspect as it is isolated." (p. 47)
"No aspect of Raymond's personality was as obscure or as controversial as his religion. If history has condemned him as a cynic and a hypocrite, this is very largely due to the venomous testimony of one man, the chronicler Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay, a Cistercian and a northerner whose first encounter with the south came, perhaps revealingly, three years after the beginning of the crusade. The prime count in Peter's indictment was that Raymond was a believing heretic 'from the very cradle'. He surrounded himself with heretical courtiers and always kept a Perfect with him to administer the consolamentum should he suddenly be taken ill; he protected Perfects, giving them money and food, and even prostrating himself before them; he was heard to dismiss the Old Testament as worthless, and to ascribe to the Devil the creation of the world 'because nothing that happens in it ever goes my way'; he invited the bishop of Toulouse to hear Cathar sermons in his palace in the middle of the night; he refused to punish a heretic who urinated on an altar; he disposed of his second wife by forcing her into a Cathar community. Many of these allegations were entirely baseless, but there was enough truth in Peter's earnest litany of hatred to carry conviction among those who did not know the true weakness of the house of Toulouse." (p. 64)
W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The History of the Albigensian Crusade (1998)
"His account of many episodes is detailed and, where it can be checked against other sources, is usually found to be accurate. It is also vivid, reflecting its author's first-hand knowledge of many of the people and places involved. But Peter was also thoroughly partisan, and because events are recounted solely from the point of view of the crusaders, we gain little if any insight into the motives and attitudes of those against whom the Crusade was directed, and some aspects -- notably diplomatic developments -- are only partially covered. Overall, however, while Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay writes very much from the perspective of one side he is not deliberately untruthful, and he provides a lively narrative of events which is an invaulable source for the period he covers." (p. xx)
"While Peter is thoroughly partisan his basic honesty and indeed his naivety made it difficult for him to dissemble. Despite his complete lack of detachment we have a clear impression of a man striving to give a full and as he would see it true account of events. We have already noted his use of documentary evidence, and that he records both his own presence at certain events and specific cases of his use of other eye-witnesses. He certainly presents the crusaders' actions in the best light and their opponents' in the worst. Atrocities committed by the heretics are condemned, but while those by the crusaders are excused they are nonetheless recorded. Moreover he does not entirely ignore developments which were highly awkward from the crusader perspective. For instance, he describes (albeit briefly) Innocent III's acceptance of Peter of Aragon's representations early in 1213 ..., which led Innocent temporarily to suspend the Crusade, and also mentions the quarrel which broke out after 1212 between Simon de Montfort and Arnold Amalric (Abbot of Citeaux and chief papal legate in the early stages of the Crusade) over the title of Duke of Narbonne, which they both claimed after Raymond VI was dispossessed....
...
In general, where his version of events can be checked against other sources (which include numerous minor documents as well as the narrative sources and principal documentary sources we have mentioned) it is usually found to be reliable and there is no reason to doubt his general accuracy." (pp. xxviii-xxix)
Christopher Tyerman in God's War (2006)
"Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, nephew of Abbot Guy, wrote a detailed and well-informed contemporary account of the crusades, often as an eyewitness." (p. 586)Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)
[on the siege of Beaucaire in 1216]
"Though Montfort managed to save Lambert and his men, the Anonymous and the Cistercian chronicler disagree as to the exact terms under which he did so. Peter Vaux-de-Cernay insists the men of the garrison left with their possessions while the Anonymous says the exact opposite: that the men of the garrison left with nothing except the clothes on their backs. William of Puylaurens says the garrison surrendered in exchange for their lives, but he does not mention whether the men kept their possessions or not. What appears as a seemingly small disparity between two sources is actually quite important, because the terms worked out show us the relative standing of Montfort's bargaining position at the time. If the men of the garrison left with their possessions as Peter Vaux-de-Cernay states, then the southerners were still sufficiently afraid or respectful of the chief crusader to grant what amounted to the most honorable terms. If the garrison left with nothing but their lieves, this suggests Montfort was desperate enough to get them out at any cost, so he accepted a less honourable bargaining position. It is tempting to privilege Peter Vaux-de-Cernay's account because he was closer to events, but he always makes out that Montfort acted honorably. One is inclined, therefore, to side with the Anonymous here, since Montfort would have most likely lost the garrison if he had not agreed to the more humiliating conditions." (p. 257)
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